Start-Ups Articles

Cheat Sheet / Updated 09-16-2024

Starting an online business or growing an existing e-commerce business doesn’t have to be hard. Lots of resources are available to help you do everything from creating content for your website to building a long list of loyal customers. Being a savvy online entrepreneur also means learning to use social media to promote your business. Try these suggestions and quick tips for launching your website and engaging your customers.

Cheat Sheet / Updated 04-12-2024

Entering the financing world can be a confusing place at first. One way to get a handle on it all is to master the common financing and investing terms. It always helps to know what everyone is talking about!

Article / Updated 08-03-2023

Tens of millions of people in the United States, and hundreds of millions of people around the world, supplement their primary jobs with some type of business activities on the side. These people all spend at least some of their professional lives embracing the idea of side hustles. If you've decided to join the side-hustle world, and you've brainstormed your side hustle idea, you'll want to start pulling together a business plan. For help with exploring side-hustle ideas, brainstorming, and the planning steps that lead to this business plan phase, check out my book Side Hustles For Dummies. If you’ve ever done a jigsaw puzzle, you know that you typically start with a little portion of the overall puzzle in, say, the top left corner. Then maybe you shift to working on the bottom right side; then move to somewhere in the middle; and so on. That's sort of how you put a business plan together — a document that eventually shows the whole picture. When it comes to business plans, you have a little bit of a challenge on your hands: If you put 10 people in a room, you’ll get 20 opinions about what a business plan should look like! You’ve probably come across this same problem when you worked on your résumé, with one person telling you to structure your résumé one way, and another person indignantly disagreeing and insisting that you write your résumé a totally different way! I have some good news for you when it comes to trying to make sense out of all the different guidance you’ll find for how to write a business plan: For a side hustle, you have a lot more leeway in the order of topics that you cover — and even what you do and don’t include — than if, say, you’re putting together a business plan in search of a large bank loan or millions of dollars of venture capital investment. Maybe, someday, if your side hustle really hits its stride and starts growing toward your ideal scenario, you’ll have to worry about making sure that your business plan matches the structure that a bank or private equity firm, or some venture capital company, insists on seeing. For now, though, think in terms of pitching your side hustle to yourself — an audience of one. Are you painting a cohesive and compelling picture of how to get your side hustle going? If your side hustle is a gig-economy job, such as delivery services or ridesharing, you can probably skip over the whole business-plan stuff. However, if your gig services are along the lines of pet-sitting or bartending or doing handyman work — basically, if you’re setting up a small-business structure even though you plan to land gigs from side hustle–oriented platforms — you should at least jot down bullet points for most of the business plan sections. Your side hustle business plan should include the following sections. A short overview and a really short elevator pitch If you're in the business plan phase of your side-hustle planning, you should be able to clearly articulate exactly what your side hustle is going to be, so write it down! In fact, write it down twice! Start off your business plan with both: A one-paragraph (two paragraphs at most) highly summarized version of every key aspect of your side hustle A single-sentence elevator pitch that summarizes your summarized version (got that?) even more! Having an elevator pitch means being able to describe an idea so persuasively in about the duration of the typical elevator ride that the person to whom you’re talking is crystal clear about the most critical or unique aspects of your concept. As an example, one side-hustle starter's — let's call her Sarah — business plan starts with: "I will design, craft, and sell custom-made jewelry. I will build a Shopify site that I will promote using online marketing and advertising techniques, such as Facebook and Instagram ads, Google Ads, and short demonstration videos on YouTube and TikTok, that will link to my site. I will run the business out of my house. I’ve lined up primary and backup suppliers for all materials and tools." Then Sarah adds her elevator pitch: "I will sell custom-made jewelry from my Shopify site that I will promote through a variety of online ads." As Sarah works her way through the rest of her business plan, she can refer back to this section and adjust the wording as necessary. For now, though, she has placed a stake into the fertile side-hustle soil and is ready to start planting. Your time commitment Your business plan is for a side hustle, so you need to be crystal clear with yourself about exactly how much time you plan to spend on your venture. Plus, if you have specific time constraints, like “only evenings after work,” or “only on weekends,” or “only on Wednesday evening and all day Saturday,” you need to acknowledge these constraints and write them down. As you go through the rest of your business plan, you now have an “official statement” that describes your available time that you can use as a sanity check for your side hustle’s details. For example, suppose you plan to do software development on the side. However, because of extra hours you need to work at your full-time job, you only have about 15 hours a week available for your side hustle. You can certainly take on a little bit of software development here and there, but you’ll need to focus on shorter-duration tasks, such as building template-based websites or doing some light software configuration rather than heavy-duty application development. If you don’t have a full-time job and, instead, have a portfolio of several different side hustles, documenting your available time is still important to help make sure that your side hustles don’t clash because of conflicting demands for your time. Your schedule and major milestones Whatever your side hustle is, you have an idea of what you'd like it to be in the future. Maybe your longer-term plan is built around expanding your business, or maybe you have no intentions of growing your business at all, and you just intend to get a little business up and running and keep it going. Think about what your side hustle will look like in time increments that make sense for you — three or six months from today, in a year, three years, etc. Regardless of your expectations and the timeline for those, document it all in your business plan, along with key milestones and decision points along that timeline. Key players in your side hustle Your business plan also should include the other people and companies you'll need to connect with. If you plan to make and sell clothing, who will be your wholesale suppliers? Who will be your key points of contact — the actual people — at each one of those wholesalers? As another example, if your side hustle will be buying and selling baseball cards and other sports collectibles, will you do this via eBay, or other auction houses? Revisiting our jewelry maker, Sarah, who will be her suppliers of metals and tools? No matter what your side hustle is, and even if you’re going solo, you’ll almost certainly be involved with other people and companies at some point. Write all of these details down in your business plan, including any designated backup companies or services that you may switch to at some point. Your customers You need to identify who will comprise your target market (the people to whom you’ll try to sell your products or watch your videos or take your course, or for whom you’ll provide weekend landscaping or bartending services, or whatever your side hustle is). Sometimes, your target market can (and should) be as broad as possible. After all, if you have a potential customer out there somewhere in the world, why not try to attract that person to your business? For example, you might be selling clothing and accessories online to “the world at large” — basically, anybody who wants to place an order on your website for a blouse or leisurewear or a necklace can do so. You might get to know some of your regular customers, but for the most part these customers will be anonymous to you. In other situations, you should narrow your target market to better focus on catching the attention of a person or another business even more likely to be in your side hustle “sweet spot.” For example, Sarah’s customer base will be broad, at least initially. At some point down the road, Sarah may wholesale her jewelry to other online and in-person retailers for them to retail. At that point, she needs to go back and adjust her business plan to more precisely target certain customers — maybe not specific names of people and businesses, but at least descriptions of the types of retailers to which she’ll sell her jewelry. Startup money, budget, and financial projections This part of your business plan includes how much startup capital you’ll need, how to budget, how to forecast sales and expenses, and more. Your business plan needs to include the key aspects of the financial side of your side hustle. (How to figure out all of these things is my book Side Hustles For Dummies.) Pretend that you’re pitching your side hustle to an investor, and you also happen to be that investor. Convince yourself that you have all your financial ducks in a row. How you’ll operate This part of your business plan should include the business processes through which you’ll operate your side hustle. And you should add as much detail as possible. For example, Sarah’s side hustle has nine internal processes: buying materials and tools, deciding on her product list, building her website and storefront, and so on. She needs to take each of those processes and break them down into the underlying steps that she’ll do. She can simply list the steps as bullet points or a numbered list. Risks and mitigation It's important to consider the risks involved in your side hustle idea, and how you could mitigate those risks. List how you intend to counteract and neutralize the risk. As you’ve been working through your business plan, you may have come across a new risk or two, or come up with a new mitigation strategy for a risk that you’ve already documented. So, spend a little bit of time and take a fresh look at your list, and make any necessary updates. You can check out Business Plans For Dummies by Paul Tiffany and Steven D. Peterson for much more information about business plan structure and content, especially if your side hustle really catches on and you’re looking to take it to that mythical “next level.”

Article / Updated 08-03-2023

Even if you’re doing your side hustle on your own rather than with a partner or with the assistance of employees, plenty of other people want to share in your success — specifically, your friends and family. Guess who else wants to share in your success? The tax people. And unlike your friends and family, who share in your success by offering you encouragement and celebrating your accomplishments, the tax people want something from you. Actually, they want two things from you: Lots of documents and forms Money Like it or not, you’ll need to deal with all sorts of tax-related matters for your side hustle. Some of the tax stuff is pretty easy to understand, while other tax-related requirements and rules can get tricky. So, buckle up! You won’t find a one-size-fits-all playbook or checklist for your side hustle taxes. Your tax-filing requirements will vary depending on: The legal organization you set up for your side hustle What type of business you’re doing for your side hustle Where you live and work How to file taxes for a side hustle If you organized your side hustle as a sole proprietorship or a single-member limited liability company (LLC), I have good news for you: Your U.S. federal tax filings for your business will be just another section of your personal taxes on your Form 1040. You don’t have to file any separate returns, at least at the federal level. You will, however, need to file an additional form — a Schedule C — that is basically an attachment to the rest of your personal tax return. What if you set up your side hustle as an S corporation or a partnership? Or what if you set up an LLC with a partner? Great news … if you enjoy more paperwork. In addition to your personal tax return, you’ll need to file a separate return, not just an additional form attached to your personal tax return. Depending on how you structured your business, you need to file either: Form 1065 if your side hustle is organized as a partnership or a multi-member LLC Form 1120-S if your side hustle is organized as an S corporation Don’t worry, your Form 1040 for your personal tax return won’t feel left out if your side hustle financials show up on either a Form 1065 or a Form 1120-S. Technically, you don’t pay taxes on either S corporation or partnership income — at least not directly. If you used either of those legal structures for your side hustle, your business income (or loss) will pass through to your Form 1040, where you’ll mash all those details together with income from your day job, your personal deductions, and the rest of your personal tax stuff. You use an IRS form called a K-1 to carry your side hustle corporate or partnership finances over to your personal return. (You’ll have slightly different versions of a K-1 depending on whether your side hustle is an S corporation, a partnership, or a multi-member LLC.) The more complicated your side hustle’s legal structure is, the more complex your filing requirements will be — basically, you have a straight-line relationship up the complexity ladder. Here’s a little bit of good news: If your side hustle is one of those where you’re paid as a part-time employee rather than as an independent contractor — say, teaching a class or two at the local community college — then you’ll receive an IRS Form W-2 for each tax year, the same as you get from your full-time employer. In that case, all you need to do for your taxes is treat your side hustle just like it’s another job and add your side hustle income to your regular income. Side hustle tax rules and forms If your side hustle is service-oriented and you aren’t dealing with any physical inventory, your tax returns won’t be all that complicated, even if you did set yourself up as an S corporation or a partnership. If, however, you’re running an online store where you need to keep track of your cost of goods sold and the value of your inventory, then not only is your overall side hustle record-keeping more complicated, but your taxes may turn into a head-scratcher, too. Remember this simple equation when you're working on your side hustle tax filing: The more physical items you have that play any sort of a role in your side hustle, the more complicated your taxes will be. If you’re buying goods to resell, or if you need to purchase shelving and containers to hold products, then your taxes will be more complicated than if you’re recording and uploading videos, or doing software work, or doing ridesharing for Uber or Lyft. Everyone wants a piece of the tax action If you live in the United States, you’re well aware of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). If you live outside the United States, then you need to file tax returns with the equivalent of the IRS in your country. You don’t only have to pay up and file returns with the feds, however. Your state and maybe even your city want their cut of your side-hustle profits, and you’ll need to file the proper returns along with writing the checks or doing the electronic funds transfers to pay the taxes that you’ll owe. As complicated as the federal side of taxes can be, in many cases the state and local side is even more complicated. Why? If you’re doing your side hustle in Arizona, you’ll file different state tax return forms than if you’re side hustling in Pennsylvania or California or any other state. Some states just wants a copy of your federal return, but others have their own sets of forms. And to complicate matters even further, many states allow different deductions for expenses than the feds do, meaning that the net income from your side hustle for tax purposes may be different for the IRS than it is for the state where you live. Some cities get in on the act also, and you have to file yet another set of tax returns — and shell out even more money — to the city where you live and where you’re side hustling. Or maybe you’re getting hit at the county level rather than the city level. Sometimes those local taxes are only on W-2 wages (basically, the money you make from your day job), but in other cases, they’re full-blown tax returns that apply to side hustles. Decision time You have two paths you can take when it comes to your side-hustle taxes and filing your returns: Do it yourself. Hire an accountant. Even if you decide that you want to do your own taxes, you don’t have to study up on a ton of tax laws that are always changing or do a whole lot of calculations by hand. All of the big tax-filing programs, such as Credit Karma Taxes, TaxSlayer, TurboTax, and many others, will step you through not only your personal taxes but also basic small-business taxes that would apply to your side hustle, no matter how you set up your business (sole proprietorship, partnership, S corporation), even if your side hustle is just another part-time job with a regular old W-2. And speaking of small-business taxes: You don’t need to be an expert in taxes for your side hustle. After all, you have dozens or even hundreds of other tasks to take care of or decisions to make. However, you should still have a basic idea of the big picture, tax-wise, for your side hustle. Beyond the basics I cover in this article, you can also check out Small Business Taxes For Dummies, 3rd Edition. Even if you made the command decision to hire an accountant to file the tax returns related to your side hustle, you still need to pay attention to some key points and beware of a few big-time traps that could really trip up you and your side hustle. Specifically: Avoid the temptation to use your side hustle to “get creative” with your tax returns. Be aware that if your side hustle crosses state lines, your tax picture could get murky and complicated. Remember that tax laws change frequently and can be tricky. Be sure to correct any tax-related mistakes that you make. Staying legal and staying honest Maybe you’ve read or heard someone saying something along the lines of “I deduct all kinds of expenses through my home business — it’s great!” If that person’s statement really meant “I legally deduct all kinds of allowable expenses through my home business,” then no problem. If, however, the statement actually meant “I sneak in all kinds of personal expenses and deduct them through my home business,” then that person may be in for all sorts of tax and legal problems. And if you follow in their footsteps and start playing shady tax games with your side hustle, you could wind up in a lot of trouble. Business deductions for your side hustle Suppose your side hustle is an online retail site, where you buy clothing items from wholesalers that you then list and sell. While you’re buying clothing items for your business, why not buy some for yourself that you can “hide” among your business purchases? Then you can deduct all that clothing, and basically get your jeans and shirts and shoes at a 30 percent or 35 percent discount because you’ll owe less in federal and state taxes. Don’t do it! Maybe you do a little bit of traveling for your side hustle, and you deduct all those travel-related expenses. You know what? Why not deduct the costs of your next family vacation as well? You already have a bunch of legitimate tax deductions for airfare, hotels, meals, and other travel expenses, so who would ever know if you added a few more travel expenses that really shouldn’t be on your side hustle’s tax return? Don’t do it! Suppose you send a lot of packages to your customers via FedEx, UPS, and the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). Everything that you spend on packing materials and shipping costs is deductible. Why not also include the cost of shipping about a dozen packages to your out-of-town friends and family members for the holidays? Don’t do it! Even if you’re not swayed by the morality and ethics of cheating the government by lying — yeah, I said lying! — on your tax returns, how about a practical reason to be honest when it comes to your side hustle’s taxes? If you get caught, you’ll be in big trouble! At best, you’ll owe money — maybe a lot of money! — for back taxes, interest, and (most likely) penalties. At worst, the government could decide to criminally charge you with tax fraud. Even if you escape being convicted, you’ll have to spend a ton of money on attorneys’ fees. Will the government really come after you for claiming $100 in shipping expenses that you shouldn’t have, or for “only” $2,000 in personal travel that you inaccurately claimed as a legitimate business expense? Maybe not — but do you really want to take the chance?

Cheat Sheet / Updated 08-02-2023

So you've decided to start running your own business but are at a bit of a loss when it comes to some of the basics? Here, you find useful breakdowns of everything from how to plan, run, and most importantly, profit from your new and exciting venture.

Article / Updated 07-10-2023

Many people talk about starting a work-from-home businesses, and many dream about becoming their own bosses. Making the transition from a full-time career to self-employment, however, is a big change in anyone’s life. Are you really ready to make the move to a home business, or should you put the idea of having your own work-from-home business on the back burner for a while longer? To help you decide, take the following work-from-home business quiz. Circle your answer to each of these questions, add up the results, and find out if you’re ready to take the plunge! How strong is your drive to succeed in your own work-from-home business? I can and will be a success. Period. I’m fairly confident that if I put my mind to it, I will succeed. I’m not sure. Let me think about it for a while. Did I say that I wanted to start my own business? Are you sure that was me? Are you ready to work as hard as or harder than you have ever worked before? You bet — I’m ready to do whatever it takes to succeed! Sure, I don’t mind working hard as long as I get something out of it. Okay, as long as I still get weekends and evenings off. What? You mean I’ll still have to work after I start my own business? Isn’t that why I hire employees? Do you like the idea of controlling your own work instead of having someone else control it for you? I don’t want anyone controlling my work but me! That’s certainly my first choice. It sounds like an interesting idea — can I? Do I have to control my own work? Can’t someone control it for me? Have you developed a strong network of potential customers? Yes, here are their names and numbers. Yes, I have some pretty strong leads. Not yet, but I’ve started kicking around some ideas with potential customers. I’m sure that as soon as I let people know that I’m starting my own business, customers will line up. Do you have a plan for making the transition into your work-from-home job? Here it is — would you like to read the executive summary or the full plan? Yes, I’ve spent a lot of time considering my options and making plans. I’m just getting started. I don’t believe in plans — they crimp my style. Do you have enough money saved to tide you over while you get your work-from-home business off the ground? Will the year’s salary that I have saved be enough? I have six months’ expenses hidden away for a rainy day. I have three months’ worth. I’m still trying to pay off my college student loans. How strong is your self-image? I am self-esteem! I strongly believe in my own self-worth and in my ability to create my own opportunities. I feel fairly secure with myself; just don’t push too hard. I don’t know — what do you think? Do you have the support of your significant other and/or family? They’re all on board, are an integral part of my plan, and have been assigned responsibilities. They’re in favor of whatever makes me happy. I’m pretty sure they’ll support me. I’m going to tell them about it later. If it’s a necessary part of your plan, will you be able to start up your work-from-home business while you remain in your current job? Sure — in fact, my boss wants in! If I make a few adjustments in my schedule, I can’t see any other reason why I can’t. Would you please repeat the question? Maybe I’ll be able to work on it for a couple of hours a month. What will you tell friends when they ask why you quit that great job? I’m free at last! That the benefits clearly outweigh the potential costs. I don’t know; maybe they won’t ask. I’ll pretend that I’m still working for my old organization. Give yourself 5 points for every 1 answer, 3 points for every 2, –3 for every 3 (should be easy to calculate), and –5 for every 4. Now tally up the numbers, and compare your results with the following ranges of numbers. By comparing your total points with the points contained in each of the six following categories, you can find out whether you’re ready to jump into your own work-from-home business: 25 to 50 points: Assuming you were honest with yourself as you answered the preceding questions (you were, weren’t you?), you’re ready to start a work-from-home business! You just need to decide whether to drop your day job or work into your new business gradually. 1 to 24 points: You’re definitely warming up to the idea of starting your own work-from-home business. Consider starting your own business in the near future, but make sure to keep your day job until you have your venture well under way. 0 points: You can go either way on this one. Why don’t you try taking this test again in another month or two? Read this book in the meantime. –1 to –24 points: Unfortunately, you don’t appear to be quite ready to make the move from career to work-from-home business. You should do some additional research and then take this test again in a few months. Maybe working for someone else isn’t the worst thing that can happen to you. –25 to –50: Forget it. You were clearly born to work for someone else. A work-from-home business isn’t for you. Are you ready to make the move to starting a work-from-home business? If the quiz indicates otherwise, don’t worry — you’ll have plenty of opportunities in the future. When you’re ready for a work-from-home job, they’ll be ready for you. If you’re ready now, congratulations! If you’re ready, use these tips to succeed in your work-from-home business.

Article / Updated 07-10-2023

Job coaching plays a critical part in the learning process for employees who are developing their skills, knowledge, and self-confidence. Your employees don’t learn effectively when you simply tell them what to do. In fact, they usually don’t learn at all. With the right guidance, anyone can be a good job coach. This article considers what effective job coaches do and how they do it so that you can coach your employees toward successful results. Serve as both manager and job coach Even if you have a pretty good sense of what it means to be a manager, do you really know what it means to be a coach? A coach is a colleague, counselor, and cheerleader, all rolled into one. Based on that definition, are you a coach? Why or why not? Surely you’re familiar with the role of job coaches in other realms. A drama coach, for example, is almost always an accomplished actor or actress. The drama coach’s job is to conduct auditions for parts, assign roles, schedule rehearsals, train and direct cast members throughout rehearsals, and support and encourage the actors and actresses during the final stage production. These roles aren’t all that different from the roles managers perform in a business, are they? Coaching a team of individuals isn’t easy, and certain characteristics make some coaches better than others. Fortunately, as with most other business skills, you can discover, practice, and improve the traits of good coaches. You can always find room for improvement, and good coaches are the first to admit it. Following are key characteristics and tasks for coaches: Job coaches set goals. Whether a small business’s vision is to become the leading pizza franchise in the city, to increase revenues by 20 percent a year, or simply to get the break room walls painted this year, coaches work with their employees to set goals and deadlines for completion. They then go away and allow their employees to determine how to accomplish the goals. Job coaches support and encourage. Employees — even the best and most experienced — can easily become discouraged from time to time. When employees are learning new tasks, when a long-term account is lost, or when business is down, coaches are there, ready to step in and help the team members through the worst of it. “That’s okay, Kim. You’ve learned from your mistake, and I know that you’ll get it right next time!” Job coaches emphasize team success over individual success. The team’s overall performance is the most important concern, not the stellar abilities of a particular team member. Coaches know that no one person can carry an entire team to success; winning takes the combined efforts of all team members. The development of teamwork skills is a vital step in an employee’s progress in a company. Job coaches can quickly assess the talents and shortfalls of team members. The most successful job coaches can quickly determine their team members’ strengths and weaknesses and, as a result, tailor their approach to each. For example, if one team member has strong analytical skills but poor presentation skills, a coach can concentrate on providing support for the employee’s development of better presentation skills. “You know, Mark, I want to spend some time with you to work on making your viewgraph presentations more effective.” Job coaches inspire their team members. Through their support and guidance, coaches are skilled at inspiring their team members to the highest levels of human performance. Teams of inspired individuals are willing to do whatever it takes to achieve their organization’s goals. Job coaches create environments that allow individuals to succeed. Great coaches ensure that their workplaces are structured to let team members take risks and stretch their limits without fear of retribution if they fail. Job coaches are available to advise their employees or just to listen to their problems, as needed. “Carol, do you have a minute to discuss a personal problem?” Job coaches provide feedback. Communication and feedback between coach and employee is a critical element of the coaching process. Employees must know where they stand in the company — what they’re doing right and what they’re doing wrong. Equally important, employees must let their coaches know when they need help or assistance. And both parties need this dialogue in a timely manner, on an ongoing basis — not just once a year in a performance review. Firing someone doesn’t constitute effective feedback. Unless an employee has engaged in some sort of intolerable offense (such as physical violence, theft, or intoxication on the job), a manager needs to give the employee plenty of verbal and written feedback before even considering termination. Giving employees several warnings offers them opportunities to correct deficiencies that they may not be able to see. Identify a job coach’s tools Job coaching isn’t a one-dimensional activity. Because every person is different, the best job coaches tailor their approach to their team members’ specific, individualized needs. If one team member is independent and needs only occasional guidance, recognize where she stands and provide that level of support. This support may consist of an occasional, informal progress check while making the rounds of the office On the other hand, if another team member is insecure and needs more guidance, the job coach must recognize this employee’s position and assist as needed. In this case, support may consist of frequent, formal meetings with the employee to assess progress and provide advice and direction as needed. Although you have your own job coaching style, the best coaches employ certain techniques to elicit the greatest performance from their team members: Make time for team members. Managing is primarily a people job. Part of being a good manager and coach is being available to your employees when they need your help. If you’re not available, your employees may seek out other avenues to meet their needs — or simply stop trying to work with you. Always keep your door open to your employees and remember that they are your first priority. Manage by walking around. Regularly get out of your office and visit your employees at their workstations. “Do I have a minute, Elaine? Of course, I always have time for you and the other members of my staff.” Provide context and vision. Instead of simply telling employees what to do, effective job coaches explain the why. Coaches provide their employees with context and a big-picture perspective. Instead of spouting long lists of do’s and don’ts, they explain how a system or procedure works and then define their employees’ parts in the scheme of things. “Chris, you have a very important part in the financial health and vitality of our company. By ensuring that our customers pay their invoices within 30 days after we ship their products, we’re able to keep our cash flow on the plus side, and we can pay our obligations such as rent, electricity, and your paycheck on time.” Transfer knowledge and perspective. A great benefit of having a good job coach is the opportunity to learn from someone who has more experience than you do. In response to the unique needs of each team member, coaches transfer their personal knowledge and perspective. “We faced this exact situation about five years ago, Dwight. I’m going to tell you what we did then, and I want you to tell me whether you think it still makes sense today.” Be a sounding board. Job coaches talk through new ideas and approaches to solving problems with their employees. Job coaches and employees can consider the implications of different approaches to solving a problem and role-play customer or client reactions before trying them out for real. By using active listening skills, coaches can often help their employees work through issues and come up with the best solutions themselves. “Okay, Priscilla, you’ve told me that you don’t think your customer will buy off on a 20 percent price increase. What options do you have to present the price increase, and are some more palatable than others?” Obtain needed resources. Sometimes coaches can help their employees make the jump from marginal to outstanding performance simply by providing the resources those employees need. These resources can take many forms: money, time, staff, equipment, or other tangible assets. “So, Gene, you’re confident that we can improve our cash flow if we throw a couple more clerks into collections? Okay, we’ll give it a try.” Offer a helping hand. For an employee who is learning a new job and is still responsible for performing her current job, the total workload can be overwhelming. Coaches can help workers through this transitional phase by reassigning current duties to other employees, authorizing overtime, or taking other measures to relieve the pressure. “Phoebe, while you’re learning how to troubleshoot that new network server, I’m going to assign your maintenance workload to Rachel. we can get back together at the end of the week to see how you’re doing.” Effective job coaches teach through show and tell Besides the obvious job coaching roles of supporting and encouraging employees in their quest to achieve an organization’s goals, managers as coaches also teach their employees how to achieve an organization’s goals. Drawing from your experience, you lead your workers step by step through work processes or procedures. After they discover how to perform a task, you delegate full authority and responsibility for its performance to them. For the transfer of specific skills, you can find no better way of teaching, and no better way of learning, than the show-and-tell method. Developed by a post–World War II American industrial society desperate to quickly train new workers in manufacturing processes, show-and-tell is beautiful in its simplicity and effectiveness. Show-and-tell coaching has three steps: You do, you say. Sit down with your employees and explain the procedure in general terms while you perform the task. They do, you say. Now have the employees do the same procedure as you explain each step in the procedure. They do, they say. Finally, as you observe, have your employees perform the task again as they explain to you what they’re doing. As you go through these steps, have employees create a “cheat sheet” of the new steps to refer to until they become habit. Good job coaches make turning points big successes Despite popular impressions to the contrary, 90 percent of management isn’t the big event — the blinding flash of brilliance that creates markets where none previously existed, the magnificent negotiation that results in unheard-of levels of union-management cooperation, or the masterful stroke that catapults the firm into the big leagues. No, 90 percent of a manager’s job consists of the daily chipping away at problems and the shaping of talents. The best coaches are constantly on the lookout for turning points — the daily opportunities to succeed that are available to all employees. The big successes — the victories against competitors, the dramatic surges in revenues or profits, the astounding new products — are typically the result of building a foundation of countless small successes along the way. Making a phone-prompt system more responsive to your customers’ needs, sending an employee to a seminar on time management, writing a great sales agreement, conducting a meaningful performance appraisal with an employee, meeting a prospective client for lunch — all are turning points in the average business day. Although each event may not be particularly spectacular on its own, when aggregated over time, they can add up to big things. This is the job of a coach. Instead of using dynamite to transform the business in one fell swoop (and taking the chance of destroying their business, their employees, or themselves in the process), job coaches are like the ancient stonemasons who built the great pyramids of Egypt. The movement and placement of each individual stone may not have seemed like a big deal when considered as a separate activity. However, each was an important step in achieving the ultimate result — the construction of awe-inspiring structures that have withstood thousands of years of war, weather, and tourists. Incorporate job coaching into your day-to-day interactions Job coaches focus daily on spending time with employees to help them succeed — to assess their progress and to find out what they can do to help the employees capitalize on the turning points that present themselves every day. Job coaches complement and supplement the abilities and experience of their employees by bringing their own abilities and experience to the table. They reward positive performance and help their employees learn important lessons from making mistakes — lessons that, in turn, help the employees improve their future performance. For example, suppose you have a young and inexperienced, but bright and energetic, sales trainee on your staff. Your employee has done a great job of contacting customers and making sales calls, but she hasn’t yet closed her first deal. When you talk to her about this, she confesses that she’s nervous about her own personal turning point: She’s worried that she may become confused in front of the customer and blow the deal at the last minute. She needs your coaching. The following guidelines can help you, the job coach, handle any employee’s concerns: Meet with your employee. Make an appointment with your employee as soon as possible for a relaxed discussion of the concerns. Find a quiet place free of distractions, and put your phone on hold or forward it to voice-mail. Listen! One of the most motivating things one person can do for another is to listen. Avoid instant solutions or lectures. Before you say a word, ask your employee to bring you up-to-date with the situation, her concerns, and any possible approaches or solutions she’s considered. Let her do the talking while you do the listening. Reinforce the positive. Begin by pointing out what your employee did right in the particular situation. Let your employee know when she’s on the right track. Give her positive feedback on her performance. Highlight areas for improvement. Point out what your employee needs to do to improve and tell her what you can do to help. Agree on the assistance you can provide, whether your employee needs further training, an increased budget, more time, or something else. Be enthusiastic about your confidence in the employee’s ability to do a great job. Follow through. After you determine what you can do to support your employee, do it! Notice when she improves. Periodically check up on the progress your employee is making and offer your support as necessary. Above all, be patient. You can’t accomplish job coaching on your terms alone. At the outset, understand that everyone is different. Some employees catch on sooner than others and some employees need more time to develop. Differences in ability don’t make certain employees any better or worse than their co-workers — they just make them different. Just as you need time to build relationships and trust in business, your employees need time to develop skills and experience.

Article / Updated 07-10-2023

Are you ready to put that work-from-home idea to work? (Take our work-from-home quiz to assess your readiness.) Not surprisingly, a work-from-home business is a business based in a home. Whether you do all the work in your home or you do some of it on customers’ or third-party premises, whether you run a franchise, a direct-sales operation, or a business opportunity, if the center of your operations is based in your home, it’s a work-from-home business. Determining the kind of work-from-home business you want to have After you decide you’re going to start your own small business, you have to answer two questions: What kind of work-from-home business do you want to start? What’s the best way to market your products or services? You basically have two types of work-from-home businesses to choose from: businesses you start from scratch and businesses you buy. The latter category is further split into three types: franchises, direct-selling opportunities, and business opportunities. Whether you prefer to march to your own drum and start your business from the ground up or get a business-in-a-box depends on your personal preferences. The advantage of a business you start from scratch is that you can mold it to fit your preferences and the existing and emerging markets, which provides you with a boundless variety of possibilities. Businesses started from scratch account for the majority of viable, full-time businesses — in other words, they tend to be more successful over the long run than businesses you can buy. Each type of home business that you can buy, on the other hand, has its own spin. The following information illustrates how the three types are different from one another. Franchise A franchise is an agreement in which one business grants another business the right to distribute its products or services. Some common home-based franchises include the following: Aussie Pet Mobile (mobile pet grooming) Jani-King (commercial cleaning service) Jazzercise (dance/exercise classes) ServiceMaster Clean (cleaning service) Snap-on Tools (professional tools and equipment) Direct selling Direct selling involves selling consumer products or services in a person-to-person manner, away from a fixed retail location. The two main types of direct-selling opportunities are Single-level marketing: Making money by buying products from a parent company and then selling those products directly to customers Multi-level marketing: Making money through single-level marketing and by sponsoring new direct sellers Some common home-based direct-selling opportunities include the following: Shaklee (household cleaning products) Pampered Chef (kitchen tools) Green Irene (green products and consulting) Mary Kay (cosmetics) Fuller Brush Company (household and personal-care products) Business opportunity A business opportunity is an idea, product, system, or service that someone develops and offers to sell to others to help them start their own, similar businesses. With a business opportunity, your customers and clients pay you directly when you deliver a product or service to them. (Another way to think of a business opportunity is that it’s any business concept you can buy from someone else that isn’t direct selling or franchising.) Here are several examples of business opportunities that you can easily run out of your home: Astro Events of America (inflatable party rentals) Debt Zero LLC (debt settlement) ClosetMaid (storage and organizational products) Interested in how to find more companies and how to get in touch with them? Entrepreneur Media and Go Small Biz have extensive information on business opportunities you can buy. You can also do a search on Google or your favorite search engine, using the keywords business opportunity. After you decide on a work-from-home business, you have to find the money to get it started. Then you have to market your products or services and persuade people to buy them. You can choose conventional methods of promotion, such as advertising and public relations, or you can leverage new selling opportunities, such as the Internet, to your advantage. Or you can (and probably should) do both. It’s your choice — you’re the boss! Managing your money as a work-from-home business owner Money makes the world go ’round, and because you’re talking about your financial well-being here, it’s very important that you have a handle on your business finances. To get the handle you need, do the following: Find the money you need to start your business. The good news is that many work-from-home businesses require little or no money to start up. If you decide to buy a franchise or business opportunity from someone else, however, you definitely need some amount of start-up funding. To find this funding, consider all your options, including friends and family, savings, credit cards, bank loans, and more. Keep track of your money. In most cases, keeping track of your money means using a simple accounting or bookkeeping software package (such as Quicken) to organize and monitor your business finances. Set the right price for your products and services. If you set your prices too high, you’ll scare customers away; if you set them too low, you’ll be swamped with customers, but you won’t make enough money to stay afloat. Be sure to charge enough to cover your costs while generating a healthy profit. Obtain health insurance, and plan for your retirement. When you have your own business, you’re the one who needs to arrange for health insurance and set up IRAs, 401(k)s, or other retirement plans for the day when you’re ready to hang up your business and stroll off into the sunset. Pay taxes. As someone famous once said, “The only things you can count on in life are death and taxes.” Well, taxes are a definite, so make sure you pay all the taxes you owe for your home-based business. Avoiding problems in your work-from-home business Eventually, every business — home-based or not — runs into problems. Whether the problems are being late on a delivery or hitting a snag with the Internal Revenue Service, as the owner of your own business, you need to avoid problems whenever possible and deal with them quickly and decisively when you can’t avoid them. Some of the problems you may deal with include the following: Legal issues: After a good accountant, the next best friend of any business owner is a good attorney. Keep one handy to help you deal with legal issues when they inevitably arise. Issues with support services: Finding skilled and reliable outside support services — lawyers, accountants, bankers, business consultants, and insurance brokers — isn’t necessarily an easy task, especially if your business is in a small town where you’re pretty much stuck with what’s down the road. Scams and rip-offs: More and more work-from-home business scams seem to appear every day, so don’t rush into any business opportunity. Take your time and fully explore every opportunity before you sign on the dotted line. And remember, if it looks too good to be true, it probably is. Moving ahead with your small business idea One of the best things about owning your own business is watching it develop, mature, and grow. After all, a growing business is the gift that keeps on giving — all year round, year after year. To keep your business moving ahead, consider doing the following: Make the web work for you. Doing business and generating sales and interest in your business via the Internet is practically a given for any work-from-home business today. You can make the web work for you in any number of ways, from starting a blog or website to networking with others through online forums or social networking sites, such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Maintain a serious business attitude. Just because your business is located at home instead of in a big office building downtown doesn’t mean you shouldn’t treat it like the business it is. Although you can have fun and work all kinds of creative schedules, don’t forget that the business part of your business is important, too; you have to treat your business like a business if you hope to be successful. Look for ways to grow. For many businesses, growth can turn an operation that is doing well financially into an operation that is doing great! Growth allows you to take advantage of economies of scale that may be available only to larger businesses, to serve more customers, and to increase profits. For these reasons and more, growing your business should always be on your agenda. Leaving your full-time job for your part-time business An important, basic consideration that many fledgling, part-time work-from-home business owners face is whether or not to leave a full-time job in favor of a work-from-home business. Before you give up your full-time job, ask yourself these questions: Has there been a steadily growing flow of new customers in your home-based business? Has your business, even though it’s only been part-time, produced a steady flow of income through seasonal or other cycles typical of the business? Are you turning away business because of limits on your time? If not, do you think business would increase if you had the time to market or take on more customers? Being able to answer at least two of these questions in the affirmative is a good sign that it would be safe to leave your full-time job. Of course, you should also be aware of any developments that could worsen the outlook for your business to grow, such as pending legislation, new technology, the movement of the kind of work you do outside the U.S. (outsourcing or cloud computing), or the decline of an industry your business depends on. If your day job has been providing you the contacts you’ve needed to build your part-time business, you need to find ways to replace them before you leave your job. Breaking the umbilical cord of a paycheck is an uncomfortable step for most people. So the closer the current income from your business is to the amount of money you need to pay your basic business and living expenses, the more confident you can be. Regardless of which work-from-home business you choose, make sure you have considered all eventualities before taking the leap.

Article / Updated 07-05-2023

If you want to hire great people for your business, you’ll need to hone your interviewer skills. After you narrow the field to the top applicants, the next step is to start interviewing. What kind of interviewer are you? Do you spend several hours preparing for interviews — reviewing résumés, looking over job descriptions, writing and rewriting questions until each one is as finely honed as a razor blade? Or are you the kind of interviewer who, busy as you already are, starts preparing for the interview when you get the call from your receptionist that your candidate has arrived? The secret to becoming a great interviewer is to be thoroughly prepared for your interviews. Remember how much time you spent preparing to be interviewed for a job you really wanted? You didn’t just walk in the door, sit down, and get offered the job, did you? You probably spent hours researching the company, its products and services, its financials, its market, and other business information. You probably brushed up on your interviewing skills and may have even done some role-playing with a friend or in front of a mirror. Don’t you think you should spend at least as much time getting ready for the interview as the people you’re going to interview? Ask the right interview questions More than anything else, the heart of the process is the interviewing questions you ask and the answers you get in response. You get the best answers when you ask the best questions. Lousy questions often result in lousy answers that don’t really tell you whether the candidate is right for the job. A great interviewer asks great questions. According to Richard Nelson Bolles, author of the perennially popular job-hunting guide What Color Is Your Parachute?, you can categorize all interview questions under one of the following headings: Why are you here? Why is the person sitting across from you going to the trouble of interviewing with you today? You have just one way to find out — ask. You may assume that the answer is because he or she wants a job with your firm, but what you find may surprise you. Consider the story of the interviewee who forgot that he was interviewing for a job with Hewlett-Packard. During the entire interview, the applicant referred to Hewlett-Packard by the name of one of its competitors. He didn’t get the job. What can you do for us? Always an important consideration! Of course, your candidates are all going to dazzle you with their incredible personalities, experience, work ethic, and love of teamwork — that almost goes without saying. However, despite what many job seekers seem to believe, the question is not, “What can your firm do for me?” — at least, not from your perspective. The question that you want an answer to is, “What can you do for us?” What kind of person are you? Few of your candidates will be absolute angels or demons, but don’t forget that you’ll spend a lot of time with the person you hire. You want to hire someone you’ll enjoy being with during the many work hours, weeks, and years that stretch before you — and the holiday parties, company picnics, and countless other events you’re expected to attend. You also want to confirm a few other issues: Are your candidates honest and ethical? Do they share your views regarding work hours, responsibility, and so forth? Are they responsible and dependable employees? Would they work well in your company culture? Of course, all your candidates will answer in the affirmative to mom-and-apple-pie questions like these. So how do you find the real answers? You might try to “project” applicants into a typical, real-life scenario and then see how they’d think it through. For example, ask the prospect what she would do if a client called at 5 p.m. with an emergency order that needed to be delivered by 9 a.m. the next morning. This way, there’s no “right” answer and candidates are forced to expose their thinking process: what questions they’d ask, what strategies they’d consider, which people they’d involve, and so forth. Ask open-ended questions and let your candidates do most of the talking. Can we afford you? It does you no good to find the perfect candidate but, at the end of the interview, discover that you’re so far apart in pay range that you’re nearly in a different state. Keep in mind that the actual wage you pay to workers is only part of an overall compensation package. You may not be able to pull together more money for wages for particularly good candidates, but you may be able to offer them better benefits, a nicer office, the option of working from home, extra time off, a more impressive title, or a key to the executive sauna. Interviewer dos So what can you do to prepare for your interviews? The following handy-dandy checklist gives you ideas on where to start: Review the résumés of each interviewee the morning before interviews start. Not only is it extremely poor form to wait to read your interviewees’ résumés during the interview, but you miss out on the opportunity to tailor your questions to those little surprises you invariably discover in the résumés. Become intimately familiar with the job description. Are you familiar with all the duties and requirements of the job? Surprising new hires with duties that you didn’t tell them about — especially when they’re major duties — isn’t a pathway to new-hire success. Draft your questions before the interview. Make a checklist of the key experience, skills, and qualities that you seek in your candidates, and use it to guide your questions. Of course, one of your questions may trigger other questions that you didn’t anticipate. Go ahead with such questions, as long as they give you additional insights into your candidate and help illuminate the information you’re seeking with your checklist. Select a comfortable environment for both of you. Your interviewee will likely be uncomfortable regardless of what you do. You don’t need to be uncomfortable, too. Make sure that the interview environment is well ventilated, private, and protected from interruptions. You definitely don’t want your phone ringing off the hook or employees barging in during your interviews. You get the best performance from your interviewees when they aren’t thrown off track by distractions. As you have no doubt gathered by now, interview questions are one of your best tools for determining whether a candidate is right for your company. Although some amount of small talk is appropriate to help relax your candidates, the heart of your interviews should focus on answering the questions just listed. Above all, don’t give up. Keep asking questions until you’re satisfied that you have all the information you need to make your decision. Take lots of notes as you interview your candidates. Don’t rely on your memory when it comes to interviewing candidates for your job. If you interview more than a couple of people, you can easily forget who said exactly what, as well as what your impressions were of their performances. Not only are your written notes a great way to remember who’s who, but they’re an important tool to have when you’re evaluating your candidates. And try to avoid the temptation to draw pictures of little smiley faces or that new car you’ve been lusting after. Write the key points of your candidates’ responses and their reactions to your questions. For example, if you ask why your candidate left her previous job, and she starts getting really nervous, make a note about this reaction. Finally, note your own impressions of the candidates: Top-notch performer — the star of her class. Fantastic experience with developing applications in a client/server environment. The best candidate yet. Geez, was this one interviewing for the right job? Interviewer don’ts If you’ve gone through the hiring process a few times already, you know that you can run into tricky situations during an interview and that certain questions can land you in major hot water if you make the mistake of asking them. Some interviewing don’ts are merely good business practice. For example, accepting an applicant’s invitation for a date is probably not a good idea. Believe it or not, it happens. After a particularly drawn-out interview at a well-known high-tech manufacturer, a male candidate asked out a female interviewer. The interviewer considered her options and declined the date; she also declined to make Prince Charming a job offer. Avoid playing power trips during the course of the interview. Forget the old games of asking trick questions, turning up the heat, or cutting the legs off their chairs (yes, some people still do this game playing) to gain an artificial advantage over your candidates. Get real — it’s the 21st century. Some blunders are the major legal type — the kind that can land you and your company in court. Interviewing is one area of particular concern in the hiring process as it pertains to possible discrimination. For example, although you can ask applicants whether they are able to fulfill job functions, in the United States, you can’t ask them whether they have disabilities. Because of the critical nature of the interview process, you must know the questions that you absolutely should never ask a job candidate. Here is a brief summary of the kinds of topics that may get you and your business into trouble, depending on the exact circumstances: Age Arrest and conviction record Debts Disability Gender or gender identity Height and weight Marital status National origin Race or skin color Religion (or lack thereof) Sexual orientation Legal or illegal, the point is that none of the preceding topics is necessary to determine applicants’ ability to perform their jobs. Therefore, ask questions that directly relate to the candidates’ ability to perform the tasks required. To do otherwise can put you at definite legal risk. In other words, what does count is job-related criteria — that is, information that’s directly pertinent to the candidate’s ability to do the job (you clearly need to decide this prior to interviewing!).

Article / Updated 06-12-2023

With so many different website pages and options for what and when (or where) a visitor first sees on your site, it’s critical to help define the path you want visitors to take through the website for your online business. Just as you want a profitability plan for your site, you need to map out and control, or heavily influence, how traffic flows through the pages of your website. Ultimately, you want that traffic flow or “visitor pathway” to result with an action — making a purchase, requesting a quote, watching a video, downloading a white paper, registering for a webinar … the list of actions is nearly endless and totally dependent upon what you want your visitor to do. In the past (and we mean years ago, when businesses first started getting online), websites had a very simple structure. There were usually three to five main sections of a site (Homepage, About Us, Products, Services, Contact Us) with few total pages — usually less than a dozen. Today, websites, especially e-commerce sites, can have hundreds of pages, or more. There are also lots of different ways people can find or enter your site — directly (by typing your domain name in a web browser), through a link in social media, by responding to an online ad from Google Ads, in response to a call to action in a video on YouTube, or through organic search (because they’re searching for information or products and your site shows up in search results). Not to mention, new visitors can start their experiences with your site from your home page or from any other page in your website (this is considered a landing page because visitors “land” on it first). Let’s start by defining exactly what we mean by website goals and conversions. A “goal” is an end result you want to achieve, and it must be specific and measurable. You might have a goal to increase traffic to a particular product page on your website by 20 percent over the previous 30 days and have a bounce rate (whether or not visitors immediately leave or bounce off that page) of 40 percent or less. A “conversion” is the completion of an action, such as clicking a call-to-action button or actually buying a product. We sometimes talk about conversion rates to determine how successful an online offer is on a particular page. One way to calculate the rate is by dividing the number of clicks on a call-to-action button by the number of visitors on the page over a certain period of time. A Buy Now button on a product page may have a 2 percent conversion rate, for example. Before you can map out how you want traffic to flow through your website, you need to define the goals and conversion points for each page of your website. And all these decisions are critical to successful website design! Obviously, you cannot physically control what actions website visitors take and which pages they view, or in which order. However, knowing the goal of a specific page helps you determine which calls to action you need on the page, and further helps you determine what type of content you need on that page. The figure shows an example of a visitor pathway based on goals and conversions. Use the information from the profitability plan you create to determine what type of conversions you need on each page. This ensures you are directing visitors to click on offers that help generate the highest possible revenue for your online business. Each page of your website should have a goal associated with it. What is the purpose of the page? What do you want visitors to do when they are on that page? Where do you want visitors to go next? For example, the goal may be for visitors to read information about a common problem they may be having and learn more (which could be measurable by the bounce rate and time spent on the page). The conversion point may be to click a link within the text to a product or service page that solves the common problem they just read about; or it might be to watch a video for more detailed information. Knowing the goal for each page also helps you determine the most appropriate conversion points on the page. (Yes, you can have more than one conversion point!) Once you have goals, conversions, and visitor flow mapped out, you have a good starting point to determine your site’s structure.